A NEW STAKE PRESIDENT AND MEN'S DAY BOOKEND OUR WEEK

Sunday, February 16th, a big thing happened here in Moscow. A new Stake President was called to lead the Moscow Stake. Moscow was the first stake established in Russia in 2011. Sunday was the time to make a change in the original Stake Presidency. Our first stake president was the former district president and had served for over 5 years, a long time for a man with a very young family. We all attended a special conference Sunday morning at a local convention hall. It was wonderful to see so many faithful saints all in one place. Of course, the new stake president was sustained unanimously. It will be interesting to see the direction this new leadership takes the stake. He was a very successful ward mission leader in the University branch before this new call and so we're hoping he will focus strongly on missionary work. 

The following Sunday, the 23rd, was a holiday here in Russia called Men's Day. It used to be held to celebrate only veterans but has evolved into a general celebration of all men. In keeping with this, our Relief Society prepared a song to sing to the men of the ward and lots of refreshments for them to eat after our meeting block. About 15 minutes before the end of Relief Society and Priesthood, we all gathered in the institute room on the third floor. The women sang, "Love is Spoken Here" and the Relief Society President gave a tribute to our men in the ward. Afterwards everyone enjoyed lots of fruits and sweet treats while visiting together.  


The night before this, a ward party had also been held to celebrate this holiday. It was a well planned and very fun party. The whole evening was spent in teams, men against the women.  We played a fun game using both pictionary (drawing) and charades (acting).  We also played name that tune, name that movie clip, and a game where a person acted out a fractured fairy tale using the vowels of each word as clues. The funniest activity was a competition where the men and women had to braid three ribbons. Paul was on the men's team. I took a video that is so funny but can't get it to download onto this blog. Everyone was laughing so hard. It was so hilarious to watch these men try and decide who needed to go over who in order to create the braid. The whole evening was full of lots of laughter. Everyone had such a good time.

NOW FOR THE MIDDLE OF THE WEEK..........

Monday we had our last apartment check for the quarter. The sisters must have spent the whole weekend cleaning their apartment as we had never seen an apartment so spotless...even the oven and microwave.  Before going home, we detoured to the Metropolis mall for lunch. We noticed Elders Calderwood and Folkman there so they joined us....we all love Wendy's. While we were eating, we began listening to a group of boys sitting at the table next to us. They were all speaking English so, of course, that caught our attention. Paul went over to talk with them and found out they go to the international school which is one stop South on the metro.  Their parents are diplomats here from the US and Korea. 

We had a delightful time with these elders

at our dinner table.

When we returned home, I made some congo bars, thinking I would give some to Isaac when he came over for his seminary lesson that afternoon and freeze the rest for English group on Wednesday. That's when the steady stream of Elders began coming to our apartment.  Elders Davis and Braun had to email home.  When they left Elders Jewkes and Friar came over to study before catching a train.  Elders Merrill and Bug then came by to fill out a survey President Borders requested. Of course, I had to give each of them a few congo bars. When it was time to fix dinner, we still had a houseful of elders so we extended an invitation for them to stay for dinner. They jumped at the offer.  I offered congo bars for dessert and all but two were eaten. So much for my plan to save them for English group. 

The two Congo bars left of a pan of 40

A highlight of the night, though, was facetiming Mom and Dad in Hawaii.  My brother and sister in law, Don and Dana, took Mom and Dad to Hawaii to visit Deon and Gary, my sister and brother in law who are on a mission there. We had a wonderful visit. Face time is the greatest.  



Due to zone conference this week, we did not have our regular Tuesday district meeting. Both Tuesday and Wednesday, though, were busy in preparation for our institute lesson on Thursday.  We had to be totally ready on Wednesday as we knew we'd be involved in zone conference most of Thursday.  Those two days were also spent baking 6 loaves of banana bread for zone conference lunch and two desserts for refreshments for English group.  

Love the creative fishing poles - broom handles!

Zone conference, on Thursday, was especially good.  We loved the counsel and challenges given by the president. The whole focus was on contacting. The strongest 'contacters' were asked to come forward and give some ideas as to how to be successful.  The zone leaders presented a darling skit about fishing. They were illustrating ways to 'fish for contacts to teach' using the proper bait. It was funny but very effective.  Our assistants gave a training on setting realistic goals as a mission. It seems they had asked each district to set a goal for baptisms and baptismal dates before transfers.  With less than a month to go before transfers, the numbers came back so unreachable that the AP's knew they needed to teach how to set realistic and attainable goals. Their training was very effective, too.  

These are the elders and sisters called up to talk about their successful 

contacting techniques. We obviously have the leaders in our district as 

all who were called up were either in our 

district or have been in our district.

The main thrust of our Institute lesson was a comparison between Satan's vain and false doctrines which we labeled as 'tools of illusion' and the Doctrine of Christ. We also discussed how to know which to choose.  We love the insights some of our students give to the principles we teach.  A good percentage of our students are return missionaries. They have had much experience teaching the Doctrine of Christ and seeing people's lives change as they decide to accept Christ and His gospel. Truly, this is one of our favorite assignments of this mission. We love the continual study of the scriptures this requires as well as the opportunity to teach these wonderful young singles. So uplifting.

Friday, Paul watched BYU beat Gonzaga in the replay of the game. I went to a yoga and baked some more cookies for game night. We taught Isaac and then spent the evening at the church doing a puzzle with Sasha, for whom we had promised cookies if he would come to game night.

In front of the Russian Historical

Museum

Which brings us to Saturday. At noon we met Elder and Sister Hayes and visited the Moscow Historical Museum on Red Square. We were told it was a must to see and, although we could read very little of the explanations on the displays, it was a great experience.  We were amazed at the inside of the building. It could have been a museum all by itself as each room was so beautifully constructed to reflect the displays therein. Afterward we tried a new Mexican restaurant called the Mexican Club. It was in an upscale mall just off Red Square and the food was very tasty. A good choice for a late lunch/dinner. We returned home just in time to change and attend the ward party to celebrate Men's day.

 Some of the beautiful rooms in the museum.  

Many of them could have come right out of a tsar's palace

There was a large room of gold and brass

items from the different dynasties.

Here are just two of the many period clothing on display.

This is a carriage for the children of royalty.  

The seating area of this carriage was only less than 4 feet high.

Enjoying good food and good company at the Mexican restaurant.

LIVING IN RUSSIA SPOTLIGHT

In the grocery stores we see all sorts of exotic fruits of which we have no idea what they are.  While at the sister's apartment this week we were shown what one of them was....a pomello. It is a large grapefruit type fruit, a little less tart, but very hard to get to the actual part you can eat....lots of peel and membrane.  

While at English group, a girl said something that was quite interesting.  It helped us understand the Russian culture a little better. We were talking in a small group about healthy living. One of the girls asked me how I stayed healthy.  Everyone else in the group has talked about eating the right foods, exercising and getting enough sleep.  I decided to talk about attitude so I said that part of living healthily was to be happy, to find something to smile about every day. The girl who asked the question immediately responded with, "We live in Russia. How can we be happy? There are so many things to be stressed and worried about." I felt sad. We don't sense that with the members of the church here, but it must be quite common with the majority of the people here.

When we took the aeroexpress train to the airport a few weeks ago, we noticed this vending machine in the waiting room. Have you every seen a hot hamburger come out of a machine before. We hadn't.  We wondered what they would taste like, but not enough to try one.